After the Al–Khubz al–hafi crisis ended, Magda al–Nowaihi and the author organized a panel at MESA 2000 on Censorship and the Arab Literary Imaginary. Magda was ready for all the battles, having ...
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After the Al–Khubz al–hafi crisis ended, Magda al–Nowaihi and the author organized a panel at MESA 2000 on Censorship and the Arab Literary Imaginary. Magda was ready for all the battles, having fought yet another of her own battles against chemotherapy just before the scheduled panel. After the panel, she walked out of a full auditorium ready for commitments: list of contributors, areas to be covered, and joint editorial work for the book. However, the work remained unfinished. Magda passed away on June 2, 2002 after a long and courageous battle. This book serves as a tribute to her, a very similar project to what Magda and the author had planned.Less

Epilogue

Samia Mehrez

Published in print: 2010-09-15

After the Al–Khubz al–hafi crisis ended, Magda al–Nowaihi and the author organized a panel at MESA 2000 on Censorship and the Arab Literary Imaginary. Magda was ready for all the battles, having fought yet another of her own battles against chemotherapy just before the scheduled panel. After the panel, she walked out of a full auditorium ready for commitments: list of contributors, areas to be covered, and joint editorial work for the book. However, the work remained unfinished. Magda passed away on June 2, 2002 after a long and courageous battle. This book serves as a tribute to her, a very similar project to what Magda and the author had planned.

This chapter demonstrates the flawed minerals leasing regime in action. Postwar changes in global energy production and escalating demand from the booming Sunbelt South brought multinational energy ...
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This chapter demonstrates the flawed minerals leasing regime in action. Postwar changes in global energy production and escalating demand from the booming Sunbelt South brought multinational energy companies to the vast coal reserves of the American West. There, they exploited a legal regime that placed authority over public and tribal minerals in the hands of unprepared federal officials, who allowed energy firms to cheaply secure millions of tons of minerals. By 1971, this system was so dysfunctional that the federal government halted further leasing of public minerals, though Indian mineral development continued unabated. No group had more experience with this broken system than the Navajo and Hopi tribes. The second half of the chapter thus demonstrates how energy companies worked with federal agents and tribal leaders to lock up reservation minerals for minimum royalties. It discusses the pressure to develop exerted by federal officials, the inexperience of tribal leaders negotiating energy deals, and the lack of knowledge among ordinary tribal members about mining’s impacts. While some tribal members resisted development, that resistance came too little, too late. These southwestern fights, however, prepared a generation of tribal leaders and consultants for their more successful battle on the Northern Plains.Less

Postwar Energy Demands and the Southwestern Experience

James Robert Allison

Published in print: 2015-10-20

This chapter demonstrates the flawed minerals leasing regime in action. Postwar changes in global energy production and escalating demand from the booming Sunbelt South brought multinational energy companies to the vast coal reserves of the American West. There, they exploited a legal regime that placed authority over public and tribal minerals in the hands of unprepared federal officials, who allowed energy firms to cheaply secure millions of tons of minerals. By 1971, this system was so dysfunctional that the federal government halted further leasing of public minerals, though Indian mineral development continued unabated. No group had more experience with this broken system than the Navajo and Hopi tribes. The second half of the chapter thus demonstrates how energy companies worked with federal agents and tribal leaders to lock up reservation minerals for minimum royalties. It discusses the pressure to develop exerted by federal officials, the inexperience of tribal leaders negotiating energy deals, and the lack of knowledge among ordinary tribal members about mining’s impacts. While some tribal members resisted development, that resistance came too little, too late. These southwestern fights, however, prepared a generation of tribal leaders and consultants for their more successful battle on the Northern Plains.

To visiting geologists, Black Rock, New Mexico, is a basaltic escarpment and an ideal natural laboratory. To hospital workers, it is a picturesque place to earn a living. To the Zuni, the mesas, ...
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To visiting geologists, Black Rock, New Mexico, is a basaltic escarpment and an ideal natural laboratory. To hospital workers, it is a picturesque place to earn a living. To the Zuni, the mesas, arroyos, and the rock itself are a stage on which the passion of their elders is relived. This book explores how a shared sense of place evolves over time and through multiple cultures that claim the landscape. Through stories told over many generations, this landscape has given the Zuni an understanding of how they came to be in this world. More recently, paleogeographers have studied the rocks and landforms to better understand the world as it once was. Archaeologists have conducted research on ancestral Zuni sites in the vicinity of Black Rock to explore the cultural history of the region. In addition, the Anglo-American employees of the Bureau of Indian Affairs came to Black Rock to advance the federal Indian policy of assimilation and brought with them their own sense of place. Black Rock has been an educational complex, an agency town, and an Anglo community. Today it is a health care center, commercial zone, and multi-ethnic subdivision. By describing the dramatic changes that took place at Black Rock during the twentieth century, the book weaves a story of how the cultural landscape of this community reflected changes in government policy and how the Zunis themselves, through the policy of Indian self-determination, eventually gave new meanings to this ancient landscape.Less

Black Rock : A Zuni Cultural Landscape and the Meaning of Place

William A. Dodge

Published in print: 2007-09-24

To visiting geologists, Black Rock, New Mexico, is a basaltic escarpment and an ideal natural laboratory. To hospital workers, it is a picturesque place to earn a living. To the Zuni, the mesas, arroyos, and the rock itself are a stage on which the passion of their elders is relived. This book explores how a shared sense of place evolves over time and through multiple cultures that claim the landscape. Through stories told over many generations, this landscape has given the Zuni an understanding of how they came to be in this world. More recently, paleogeographers have studied the rocks and landforms to better understand the world as it once was. Archaeologists have conducted research on ancestral Zuni sites in the vicinity of Black Rock to explore the cultural history of the region. In addition, the Anglo-American employees of the Bureau of Indian Affairs came to Black Rock to advance the federal Indian policy of assimilation and brought with them their own sense of place. Black Rock has been an educational complex, an agency town, and an Anglo community. Today it is a health care center, commercial zone, and multi-ethnic subdivision. By describing the dramatic changes that took place at Black Rock during the twentieth century, the book weaves a story of how the cultural landscape of this community reflected changes in government policy and how the Zunis themselves, through the policy of Indian self-determination, eventually gave new meanings to this ancient landscape.

This chapter explores the ways in which the Conchero dance tradition in Mexico City, as well as in many urban areas in the United States, manifests a process of religious healing that is not only ...
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This chapter explores the ways in which the Conchero dance tradition in Mexico City, as well as in many urban areas in the United States, manifests a process of religious healing that is not only collective and individual but also earth-centric yet cosmic. The chapter itself is a story of recovery, by the Concheros themselves, and by the Chicano communities with whom they have connected over the last several decades. For the Chicanos from the United States who have sought out the Conchero elders and dancers, this story represents a vital healing step toward the retrieval of indigenous ways of knowing and being. This story is also one of solidarity and mutual respect between indigenous peoples in Mexico and the United States. Based in Mexico City, La Mesa del Santo Niño de Atocha is an established mesa of danzantes (dancers) who belong to the Conchero dance community and religious society in central Mexico.Less

La Mesa del Santo Niño de Atocha and the Conchero Dance Tradition of Mexico-Tenochtilaάn: Religious Healing in Urban Mexico and the United States

Inés Hernández-avila

Published in print: 2004-12-30

This chapter explores the ways in which the Conchero dance tradition in Mexico City, as well as in many urban areas in the United States, manifests a process of religious healing that is not only collective and individual but also earth-centric yet cosmic. The chapter itself is a story of recovery, by the Concheros themselves, and by the Chicano communities with whom they have connected over the last several decades. For the Chicanos from the United States who have sought out the Conchero elders and dancers, this story represents a vital healing step toward the retrieval of indigenous ways of knowing and being. This story is also one of solidarity and mutual respect between indigenous peoples in Mexico and the United States. Based in Mexico City, La Mesa del Santo Niño de Atocha is an established mesa of danzantes (dancers) who belong to the Conchero dance community and religious society in central Mexico.

A major effort of the Village Ecodynamics Project involved translating the archaeological record of the central Mesa Verde region into quantitative summaries of the actual ancestral Pueblo settlement ...
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A major effort of the Village Ecodynamics Project involved translating the archaeological record of the central Mesa Verde region into quantitative summaries of the actual ancestral Pueblo settlement history, using explicit and repeatable criteria. This chapter introduces the study area, explains how we translated the archaeological record into a quantitative database using Bayesian statistical methods, and presents the basic outlines of the resulting settlement history derived from these data. These analyses provide an introduction to the basic issues surrounding ancestral Pueblo historical ecology, whichthe remaining chapters of this book address in various ways. They also provide the “pattern of resistance” against which models of climate change; agricultural potential; water availability; wood, stone, and game resources; exchange; warfare; and settlement decisions are evaluated throughout this volume.Less

The Study Area and the Ancestral Pueblo Occupation

Scott G. OrtmanDonna M. GlowackiMark D. VarienC. David Johnson

Published in print: 2012-04-09

A major effort of the Village Ecodynamics Project involved translating the archaeological record of the central Mesa Verde region into quantitative summaries of the actual ancestral Pueblo settlement history, using explicit and repeatable criteria. This chapter introduces the study area, explains how we translated the archaeological record into a quantitative database using Bayesian statistical methods, and presents the basic outlines of the resulting settlement history derived from these data. These analyses provide an introduction to the basic issues surrounding ancestral Pueblo historical ecology, whichthe remaining chapters of this book address in various ways. They also provide the “pattern of resistance” against which models of climate change; agricultural potential; water availability; wood, stone, and game resources; exchange; warfare; and settlement decisions are evaluated throughout this volume.

May 12, 2009, began typically for Leopoldo Arteaga, owner of Mesa Groundskeeper, a landscaping company in a suburb of Phoenix, this chapter states. At six a.m., Leo, in his mid-sixties and a worker, ...
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May 12, 2009, began typically for Leopoldo Arteaga, owner of Mesa Groundskeeper, a landscaping company in a suburb of Phoenix, this chapter states. At six a.m., Leo, in his mid-sixties and a worker, began trimming 400 linear feet of oleander, a bush that grows aggressively in the Arizona heat. By eleven o'clock, the men had filled an eight-by-twenty-foot trailer with oleander clippings. Leo began towing the trailer to the landfill in nearby Pima County. He was driving east on Apache Trail Road and was about to leave the city of Mesa when he stopped at a red light. On the green, he started to move forward but noticed a Maricopa County sheriff's unit with its roof lights blazing behind him. Leo pulled to the side of the road. He looked in the mirror and saw three sheriff's cars, followed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement van. This chapter describes what happens.Less

Scapegoats in the Sun

Dale Maharidge

Published in print: 2011-06-06

May 12, 2009, began typically for Leopoldo Arteaga, owner of Mesa Groundskeeper, a landscaping company in a suburb of Phoenix, this chapter states. At six a.m., Leo, in his mid-sixties and a worker, began trimming 400 linear feet of oleander, a bush that grows aggressively in the Arizona heat. By eleven o'clock, the men had filled an eight-by-twenty-foot trailer with oleander clippings. Leo began towing the trailer to the landfill in nearby Pima County. He was driving east on Apache Trail Road and was about to leave the city of Mesa when he stopped at a red light. On the green, he started to move forward but noticed a Maricopa County sheriff's unit with its roof lights blazing behind him. Leo pulled to the side of the road. He looked in the mirror and saw three sheriff's cars, followed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement van. This chapter describes what happens.

The Salton Sink lies between the southern Coachella Valley and the northern Mexicali Valley. The long history of the Salton Trough ranges from its connection with the Gulf of California during the ...
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The Salton Sink lies between the southern Coachella Valley and the northern Mexicali Valley. The long history of the Salton Trough ranges from its connection with the Gulf of California during the Tertiary Period to the maximum spread of Lake Cahuilla beginning some 40,000 years ago. Heavy deposits of silt from the Colorado River eventually accumulated along the southern edge of Gravel Mesa to form a barrier between the former head of the gulf and the current one. The enclosed sea subsequently dried up, but reminders of the saline environment in the form of “oyster-shells and other forms of marine life” are strewn across the base of the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains at an elevation of about 100m. The depression resulting from the desiccation of this “trapped” sea was further honed by the uplifting of the surrounding mountains and became a deep basin generally called the Salton Trough.Less

A History of the Salton Sink

Michael A. PattenGuy McCaskiePhilip Unitt

Published in print: 2003-08-19

The Salton Sink lies between the southern Coachella Valley and the northern Mexicali Valley. The long history of the Salton Trough ranges from its connection with the Gulf of California during the Tertiary Period to the maximum spread of Lake Cahuilla beginning some 40,000 years ago. Heavy deposits of silt from the Colorado River eventually accumulated along the southern edge of Gravel Mesa to form a barrier between the former head of the gulf and the current one. The enclosed sea subsequently dried up, but reminders of the saline environment in the form of “oyster-shells and other forms of marine life” are strewn across the base of the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains at an elevation of about 100m. The depression resulting from the desiccation of this “trapped” sea was further honed by the uplifting of the surrounding mountains and became a deep basin generally called the Salton Trough.

This chapter focuses on the representational strategy of autotopography as seen in Amalia Mesa-Bains' altar installations. The artist is best known for her “domesticana” displays that use the ...
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This chapter focuses on the representational strategy of autotopography as seen in Amalia Mesa-Bains' altar installations. The artist is best known for her “domesticana” displays that use the critical juxtaposition of objects on display to tell personal and collective stories. These stories both celebrate and critique the domestic space and other facets of “women's culture.” The chapter reads both the earlier domesticana altars and Mesa-Bains' later earthworks-inspired installations through an ecocritical lens. The aim is twofold: first, to put more emphasis on a recycling aesthetic in her early work that not only traces its way back to Tomás Ybarra-Frausto's rasquache sensibility but can also be seen in Mesa-Bains' own reuse of altar pieces in later exhibits. Second, it traces how the artist's understanding of “nature” evolves from metaphor to material force over the course of her career.Less

Christina Holmes

Published in print: 2016-10-15

This chapter focuses on the representational strategy of autotopography as seen in Amalia Mesa-Bains' altar installations. The artist is best known for her “domesticana” displays that use the critical juxtaposition of objects on display to tell personal and collective stories. These stories both celebrate and critique the domestic space and other facets of “women's culture.” The chapter reads both the earlier domesticana altars and Mesa-Bains' later earthworks-inspired installations through an ecocritical lens. The aim is twofold: first, to put more emphasis on a recycling aesthetic in her early work that not only traces its way back to Tomás Ybarra-Frausto's rasquache sensibility but can also be seen in Mesa-Bains' own reuse of altar pieces in later exhibits. Second, it traces how the artist's understanding of “nature” evolves from metaphor to material force over the course of her career.

The hypothesis that a prolonged drought across southwestern North America in the late thirteenth century contributed to the abandonment of the region by Ancestral Pueblo populations, ultimately ...
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The hypothesis that a prolonged drought across southwestern North America in the late thirteenth century contributed to the abandonment of the region by Ancestral Pueblo populations, ultimately including the depopulation of the Mesa Verde region, continues to be a focus of archaeological research in the Pueblo region. We address the hypothesis through the re-measurement of tree-ring specimens from living trees and archaeological wood at Mesa Verde, Colorado, to derive chronologies of earlywood, latewood, and total ring width. The three chronology types all date from AD 480 to 2008 and were used to separately reconstruct cool and early warm season effective moisture and total water-year precipitation for Chapin Mesa near many of the major prehistoric archaeological sites. The new reconstructions indicate three simultaneous cool and early growing season droughts during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that may have contributed to the environmental and social factors behind Ancestral Pueblo migrations over this sector of the Colorado Plateau. These sustained inter-seasonal droughts included the “Great Drought” of the late-thirteenth century, which is estimated to have been one of the most severe regimes of cool and early summer drought in the last 1,500-years and coincided with the end of Puebloan occupations at Mesa Verde. The elevation of the 30 cm isohyet of water-year precipitation reconstructed for southwestern Colorado from the new ring-width data is mapped from AD 1276–1280 and identifies areas where dry-land cultivation of maize may not have been practical during the driest years of the Great Drought. There is no doubt about the exact dating of the tree-ring chronologies, but the low sample size of dated specimens from Mesa Verde during the late-thirteenth and fourteenth centuries contributes uncertainty to these environmental reconstructions at the time of abandonment.Less

David W. StahleDorian J. BurnetteDaniel GriffinEdward R. Cook

Published in print: 2017-11-30

The hypothesis that a prolonged drought across southwestern North America in the late thirteenth century contributed to the abandonment of the region by Ancestral Pueblo populations, ultimately including the depopulation of the Mesa Verde region, continues to be a focus of archaeological research in the Pueblo region. We address the hypothesis through the re-measurement of tree-ring specimens from living trees and archaeological wood at Mesa Verde, Colorado, to derive chronologies of earlywood, latewood, and total ring width. The three chronology types all date from AD 480 to 2008 and were used to separately reconstruct cool and early warm season effective moisture and total water-year precipitation for Chapin Mesa near many of the major prehistoric archaeological sites. The new reconstructions indicate three simultaneous cool and early growing season droughts during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that may have contributed to the environmental and social factors behind Ancestral Pueblo migrations over this sector of the Colorado Plateau. These sustained inter-seasonal droughts included the “Great Drought” of the late-thirteenth century, which is estimated to have been one of the most severe regimes of cool and early summer drought in the last 1,500-years and coincided with the end of Puebloan occupations at Mesa Verde. The elevation of the 30 cm isohyet of water-year precipitation reconstructed for southwestern Colorado from the new ring-width data is mapped from AD 1276–1280 and identifies areas where dry-land cultivation of maize may not have been practical during the driest years of the Great Drought. There is no doubt about the exact dating of the tree-ring chronologies, but the low sample size of dated specimens from Mesa Verde during the late-thirteenth and fourteenth centuries contributes uncertainty to these environmental reconstructions at the time of abandonment.